Never in recent American political history has the outcome of a presidential election been so questionable – this is not a fight for the faint of heart.

Although recent elections have been close (George W. Bush’s 2000 victory over Al Gore came down to a few hundred votes in Florida), there has always been some sense of which direction the race was heading in recent days.

Sometimes, like in 2016, the feeling is wrong. That year, polls overestimated Hillary Clinton’s strength and failed to detect any late move in favor of Donald Trump.

This time, however, the arrows all point in different directions. No one can seriously make a prediction either way.

Most final polls are well within the margin of error, both at the national level and in the seven key battleground states that will decide the election.

Based on statistics and sample sizes alone, this means both candidates could have an edge.

It is this uncertainty that plagues political pundits and campaign strategists alike.

There have been a few surprises – not least one notable example: a recent respected poll in Republican-leaning Iowa that gave Harris a shocking lead.

But the major polling averages, and the forecasting models that interpret them, all show this as a coin-tossing contest.

Just because the outcome of this election is uncertain doesn’t mean the actual outcome won’t be decisive: a shift of a few percentage points in either direction, and a candidate could sweep all the battleground states.

If the turnout models are wrong and more women go to the polls, or more rural residents, or more disaffected young voters – that could dramatically change the final results.

There may also be surprises among key demographic groups.

Will Trump really make the breakthrough with young black and Latino men as his campaign has predicted? Will Harris win over a larger share of traditionally Republican suburban women, as her team hopes? Will older voters — who vote reliably in every election and tend to lean right — enter the Democratic column?

Once this election is in the rearview mirror, perhaps we can definitively point to a reason why the winning candidate came out on top.

Perhaps in retrospect the answer will be clear. But anyone who says they know how things will turn out now is fooling you and themselves.

In most American states, the outcome of the presidential election is almost certain. But there are seven key battleground states that will decide this election.

However, not all theaters of war are created equal. Each candidate has a three-state “wall” that provides the most direct path to the White House.

Harris’ so-called “blue” wall, named after the color of the Democratic Party, extends across Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in the Great Lakes region. It has been the subject of much political conversation since 2016, when Trump narrowly won all three traditionally Democratic states on his way to victory.

Joe Biden flipped these states in 2020. If Harris can keep them, she won’t need another battleground, as long as she also wins a congressional district in Nebraska (which has a slightly different system in the way it awards its electoral college votes).

That explains why she spent most of her time in these blue wall states during the latter part of the campaign, with full days on the ground in each period.

On Monday evening, she held her final meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the top of the 72 steps leading to the city’s Museum of Art, where Sylvester Stallone’s fictional boxer Rocky climbed in the film of the same name – before narrowly losing to his opponent. , Apollo Creed.

Trump’s ‘red wall’ is on the eastern edge of the US. It is less talked about, but it is just as important for his election chances. It begins in Pennsylvania but extends south to North Carolina and Georgia. If he carries these states, he will win by two electoral votes, regardless of how the other battleground states vote.

That explains why he held five events in North Carolina this past week.

The overlapping point on each of these walls is, of course, Pennsylvania – the biggest election battleground prize. Its nickname, the Keystone State, has never been more appropriate.

Sometimes the historical significance of these presidential elections gets lost in all this electoral strategy and gameplay.

Harris and Trump represent two very different views of the US: on immigration, trade, cultural issues and foreign policy.

The president will spend the next four years shaping the U.S. government — including the federal courts — in ways that could have an impact for generations.

The American political landscape has changed dramatically over the past four years, reflecting shifts in the demographic makeup of both parties.

The Republican Party of a decade ago looked very different from the populist party Trump now leads, which has much more appeal to working-class and low-income voters.

The Democratic Party’s base still relies on young voters and people of color, but it now relies more on the wealthy and college-educated.

Tuesday’s results could provide additional evidence of how these tectonic shifts in American politics, only partially realized over the past eight years, are reshaping the American political map.

And those shifts could give one side or the other an advantage in future races.

Not long ago – in the 1970s and 1980s – Republicans were considered to have unassailable control of the presidency because they consistently won majorities in enough states to gain the upper hand in the Electoral College.

This election may be a 50-50 fight, but that doesn’t mean it’s the new normal in American presidential politics.